Prague, 12 April 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Prosecutors in Belarus said today they were reopening an investigation into the disappearance of Russian TV news cameraman Dmitri Zavadskii.

Zavadskii worked for Russia's ORT television. He disappeared on 7 July 2000, after he left for the Minsk airport to meet a Russian colleague.

He has not been seen nor heard from since and despite fears he may be dead, his body has never found.

Yuri Azarenok, a spokesman for the prosecutor general's office, said the case was being reopened because of, quote, "the need to conduct investigative actions."

Azarenok declined to say more about the decision.

A Belarus court convicted four people, including two security service officers, in 2002 in Zavadskii's disappearance but the cameraman's relatives remain skeptical that the right people were convicted. (AP)